7 months ago
3
Days aft the RSS held 100 patha sanchalana (route marches) and events crossed Bengaluru connected October 11, to people its centenary, the Karnataka authorities issued an bid to modulate the usage of state-owned properties by backstage organisations.
On October 4, IT/BT and Rural Development Minister Priyank Kharge wrote to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seeking a prohibition connected the activities of the Sangh connected the premises of government-run institutions arsenic they are “contrary to India’s unity and the tone of the Constitution.” The authorities bid connected October 18 did not straight notation the RSS. It sought to enactment riders connected a wide spectrum of “private organisations/societies/trusts/clubs oregon immoderate different entity registered/unregistered” utilizing nationalist spaces. In essence, it reiterated and consolidated existing rules. Mr. Siddaramaiah has been astatine pains to explicate that the rules bash not singularly people the RSS and that akin rules had been enactment successful spot during the BJP authorities successful 2013. However, the timing and series of events person made it hard to delink the bid from the Sangh.
October 18 was besides marked by hostility successful Chittapur, Mr. Kharge’s constituency, arsenic the Kalaburagi territory medication denied support for an RSS patha sanchalana the adjacent day, citing instrumentality and bid issues. The Bhim Army and the Bharatiya Dalit Panthers excessively had sought support for marches on the aforesaid way the aforesaid day. Over the erstwhile 2 days, Dalit groups had held protests successful enactment of Mr. Kharge, who had been receiving abusive calls and threats from self-proclaimed “sanatanis” implicit his missive to the Chief Minister. The RSS has present rescheduled its march to November 2 and approached the High Court.
Amid the cacophony that included the suspension of 2 authorities employees for taking portion successful the RSS marches, 1 item has gone nether the radar — Mr. Siddaramaiah’s acquisition to the Karnataka Chief Secretary to survey the measures taken by the Tamil Nadu authorities to restrict the RSS’s activities.
There are, successful fact, nary circumstantial “rules” successful spot successful Tamil Nadu to curb RSS activities; rather, the Dravidian, anti-Brahmin question has historically made it hard for the RSS to penetrate that region. This, successful turn, has made it easier for the authorities to enforce restrictions, contempt a changeless propulsion back.
On the different hand, Karnataka has been fertile crushed for the RSS ideology for a agelong time. In autarkic India, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh got ballot shares of 2-5% successful the elections arsenic aboriginal arsenic the 1950s, dissimilar Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, oregon Kerala, wherever Dravidian and communist currents held greater sway implicit society. It was lone logical that the BJP formed its archetypal authorities successful southbound India successful Karnataka. Though shrewd negotiations and realpolitik manoeuvers by B.S. Yediyurappa made this happen, it could not person occurred successful an ideological vacuum. While the Sangh Parivar has ideologically captured coastal Karnataka for immoderate clip now, and has historically had a stronger basal successful the Mumbai-Karnataka portion too, it is present gaining crushed successful Old Mysore districts specified arsenic Mandya, made easier by the BJP’s confederation with the JD(S), a determination enactment with a beardown basal successful the region.
On the taste front, a large existent of Kannada sub-nationalism, which ran parallel to the state movement, was powerfully influenced by Hindutva ideology, articulated by reinvigorating the Vijayanagar empire arsenic a “Hindu kingdom.” Recently, International Booker Prize awardee Banu Mushtaq’s connection — that linking Kannada individuality truthful intimately with Hindu spiritual iconography is “exclusionary” — kicked up a storm. The RSS successful Karnataka enjoys acold greater taste acceptance for its “discipline”, “selfless work”, and different specified virtues attributed to its cadre, making its penetration into acquisition institutions spell unchallenged.
What has fuelled this is besides the ideological ambivalence oregon the non-confrontationist cognition of astir Congress leaders to the RSS ideology. While a handful, including Mr. Siddaramaiah and Mr. Kharge, stay its bitter critics, others autumn successful a spectrum — from those who half-heartedly reason it, to those who support disconnected it entirely, to those who tin dependable adjacent to the RSS successful their attack to religion
So, whether the government’s rules volition hamper the RSS’s march volition hinge little connected the rules and much connected the grade to which the Congress is consenting to basal its ground.
